


Okay

by abundantlyqueer



Series: Clueverse [1]
Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-08-21
Updated: 2003-08-21
Packaged: 2017-10-13 01:18:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/131225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abundantlyqueer/pseuds/abundantlyqueer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Elijah finally yanks his hand away and stuffs it into the back pocket of his jeans as if unsure of his ability to control its appalling behavior.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Okay

"We'll call him," Orli yells over the music.

Elijah grins and nods, then makes round eyes of dismay as he slaps his pockets and indicates lack of a cell phone. Orli tips his head and scoops his hand in a follow-me gesture, and Elijah does.

They're not drunk, not really; Orli's had just enough to give him an easy loose-limbed buzz, and even Elijah's still mostly powered by exuberant good-humor. They half-dance a steady path through the crowd on the dance-floor toward the couple of telephone kiosks in the darkened corner furthest from the bar and emerge onto the less-populated walkway.

Elijah hangs back in the open doorway of the kiosk while Orli, receiver tucked between his chin and shoulder, digs through his jeans' pockets and sorts out the right coins for the call. The song changes and Elijah does a sketchy hip twitch, left and right, with the new beat.

"Come in, I'm not gonna be able to hear with the door open," Orli says, compacting himself against the far end of the kiosk.

Elijah giggles and manages to wedge himself into the near corner and get the door pulled closed behind him. The music is slightly muffled, losing treble, but still perfectly audible. Orli reaches past Elijah and thumbs the coins into the slot. Elijah's still making little hip gestures toward dancing, and murmuring the song's lyric under his breath. Orli grins as he punches in the number on the rattling buttons.

They figure out how to fit more comfortably into the tiny space, Orli shifting his feet forward and his hips back until he's leaning solidly against the wall behind him, leaving Elijah with almost a square foot of empty floor, which is about as much as he'd get on the crowded dance-floor. Elijah is as close to really dancing as the narrow quarters will allow, while Orli grins and taps his foot and listens to the ring tone on the other line... three... four... five...

"No voicemail," he remarks, and Elijah rolls his eyes without breaking the beat.

Orli settles the receiver more comfortably and composes himself to wait. No voicemail means Viggo's there, but he won't pick up unless you let the phone ring for so long that it becomes more of irritation than having to talk to anyone; somewhere around twenty-eight rings in Orli's experience.

Elijah's got a complete tip and dip of the hips motion going, one hand splayed on his own stomach and the other snapping out the beat. Orli starts to move in a counter-rhythm, rocking forward as Elijah leans back, then back as Elijah shifts forward, and the small space of the kiosk gives them the same sense of being surrounded and supported that they normally get from the press of other dancers around them on the dance floor.

The music drops away, leaving only the unadorned thud of the bass line. Elijah does a dirty bump-and-grind that makes Orli laugh out loud. Elijah smiles back, eyelids half-lowered in mock flirtation, and Orli's features abruptly smooth into his rock-star pout and he tosses his head, failing to elicit any reaction at all from the bristle-stiff brush of his newly trimmed mohawk. The beat turns; Orli throws his shoulder back, juts his hip forward, and the hand not occupied with the phone clutches his own crotch dramatically. Elijah giggles manically, trying and failing to suppress his amusement in favor of a coldly seductive glare. On the beat, he mimics Orli's shoulder twitch and hip jerk, but for added laugh-value he makes a grab not at himself, but at Orli again.

And there's a nanosecond when that's okay, when Elijah is simultaneously aware of Orli's dark eyes creased with laughter, the heavy smoothness of very old denim under his fingers, and the half-hard knot of heat and pulse filling the cup of his palm. Then a lot of other things crowd in on him too: Orli isn't actually laughing or even smiling now, he's just staring at Elijah, staring ... they're both so motionless, not breathing, hearts not beating, and Elijah's hand is still, still, still ... Elijah finally yanks his hand away and stuffs it into the back pocket of his jeans as if unsure of his ability to control its appalling behavior.

"Shit Orli I'm sorry," Elijah says frantically, realizing even as he says it that he's throwing away any chance to pass this off as some non-event. "I didn't - I don't - I don't know what the fuck I was thinking - I guess I wasn't thinking - "

"Elijah," Orli says, and the name seems to come from somewhere deep down inside him.

"You know me, I just do these incredibly stupid fucking things and I don't even know - "

"Elijah it's okay."

" - I'm doing them - "

Abruptly Elijah stops in the midst of the rush of words he's been spilling out to overwhelm the burning image of his fingers on the pale denim of Orli's jeans.

"It's okay," Orli repeats.

Elijah nods fractionally, but his expression is more uncertain than ever. Is that okay like a 'I'm not gonna beat you senseless' okay? Or a 'I may even still talk to you' okay? Or a 'we can maybe still be friends if you keep at least six feet away from me' okay? Or a -

"I didn't - I don't mind," Orli breathes.

Oh. That kind of okay. Elijah's panic drops away, which leaves him feeling positively naked.

"You wanna touch ... knock yourself out," Orli says a little shakily, pushing his hips away from the wall ever so slightly.

There's an infinite silence while Orli looks at Elijah and Elijah looks at Orli and then at Orli's crotch; Elijah slowly reaches out, not actually making contact, but accepting the permission to do so.

"Yeah?" the impatient voice on the other end of the line demands.

"Viggo? It's not a good time right now. Let me call you back," Orli says blankly, and that hint of conversational normality is enough to make Elijah draw his hand away again. Orli fumbles the receiver back onto the cradle, which necessitates leaning forward into Elijah's space a little more.

"Elijah."

Elijah, still looking utterly stunned, is forced by the disparity in their heights to tip his head back in order to look Orli right in the eyes.

"What do you want?" Orli asks steadily.

"I have no fucking clue man," Elijah admits.

"That's okay too," Orli says, and he's not exactly smiling, but there's a definite tension at the corners of his mouth that makes Elijah feel like, yes, it is okay.


End file.
